Photo shows (from L) PS-DBM Exec. Dir. Dennis Santiago, COA Ascom. Cora dela Cruz, COA Chairperson Gamaliel Cordoba, Indonesian Auditor General Isma Yatun, Sec. Gen Bahtiar Arif and Dir. Yudi Ramdan Budiman.
PBBM wants safeguards for online procurement
PRESIDENT Ferdinand R. Marcos Jr. wants the government to put up safeguards if it wants to implement an online procurement system.
“There will still be an element of accreditation because we cannot just open the market to anything…. (What if) you buy something, you get nothing. A box with nothing inside. ‘Yung ganoon,” President Marcos said during a sectoral meeting in Malacañang on Tuesday.
“So, to safeguard against that, kailangan accredited ‘yung kausap natin,” the President stressed.
The President also warned about overpricing, which will be disadvantageous to those buying products and equipment through the digital platform.
Secretary Arsenio Balisacan of the National Economic and Development Authority (NEDA) told the President that it is difficult to calculate product pricing because if goods are quite heterogenous, not homogeneous, the price differences could also reflect quality differences.
“We know that… goods that might be overpriced. There are already some exploitation of market power by preventing competitors from coming in,” he said.
The Department of Budget and Management (DBM) announced on Tuesday that the Procurement Service – Department of Budget and Management (PS-DBM) will pilot an e-Marketplace under Philippine Government Electronic Procurement System (PhilGEPS) for government procurement of motor vehicles.
The budget department presented to the President during the Cabinet sectoral meeting in Malacañang the proposed amendments to Republic Act No. 9184, or the “Government Procurement Reform Act.”
Furthermore, the President recognized the Republic of Indonesia’s e-Marketplace for government procurement, dubbed as “INAPROC”, as a good case practice.
Taking the President’s cue, Commission on Audit (COA) Chairperson Gamaliel Cordoba included Executive Director Dennis Santiago of PS-DBM, which operates PhilGeps, the country’s central portal for all procurement information and activities of the government, in COA’s bilateral meeting with the Audit Board of Indonesia.
In the bilateral meeting, Audit Board of Indonesia Chairperson Isma Yatun discussed the history and strategies of Indonesia in the implementation of INAPROC.
Chairperson Yatun likewise extended an invitation to the COA and PS-DBM to observe and to study the actual implementation of INAPROC in Indonesia.
Like President Marcos, Chairperson Cordoba believes that our country, through PhilGEPS, will benefit in the replication of INAPROC’s safeguards against fraudulent behaviors in public procurement.
